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Huawei Mate 9 Porsche Design: what the Mate 9 could have been

Huawei recently chose the Bavarian city of Munich to unveil its successor to the Mate 8’s. As rumors led us to believe, two new devices were introduced: the Mate 9 and the Porsche Design Mate 9. If the first results are anything to go by, in my opinion the Mate 9 is a sequel with very little originality. This isn’t the case with the Porsche Design Mate 9 – it’s the smartphone that the Mate 9 should have been. Here’s why.

Huawei has grown to become one of the most successful smartphone manufacturers in the world. Those who disputed that have had to reevaluate their opinions after the brand’s recent sound and light show for the European press. The strongest symbol of this new power is without a doubt their partnership with Porsche Design for the creation of the Porsche Design edition of the Mate 9. This version, that rumors had been calling the Mate 9 Pro, differs greatly from the Mate 9 in both form and substance.

The Porsche Design Mate 9 differs greatly from the Mate 9 in both form and content.

A more successful design and better definition

In the automotive world Porsche, in particular the popular 911, is known for being among the best manufacturers in the world. On paper, being associated with Porsche Design appears to be a good idea for Huawei. If anything we would have expected just a little more originality in the device, as there are many similarities to the Galaxy Note7.

The smartphone has a great design and gives the user a more premium experience than the standard Mate 9. The aluminum encased smartphone sports a beautiful jet black color, much like the latest iPhone 7. The only major drawback is the visibility of fingerprints on the device.

As well as offering a curved display on both sides (again, like the Note7), Huawei has also moved away from its habit of inserting fingerprint readers on the front of the smartphone via a Home button. Instead the sensor is now similar to that of the MediaPad M3 tablet and identical to that which you can find on an HTC or an iPhone 7. However, you have to press it more than you would think.

The Porsche Design Mate 9 offers a smaller screen of 5.5 inches with a QHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) definition. A surprising move for Huawei was their decision to opt for a Full-HD on the standard version even though its screen was larger (5.9 inches). The compact design is also makes it much easier to handle in comparison to the massive Mate 9.

Strong technical characteristics

Under the hood, the Porsche Design Mate 9 is also much more ambitious than the Mate 9. Even if this variant has the same Kirin 960 processor and the same Leica dual camera (a 12-mega pixel color sensor (RGB) coupled with a 20-mega pixel monochrome sensor), the Porsche Design Mate 9 uses 6GB of RAM. Finally, it has an internal memory of 256GB. In short, it’s excellent for a top-range smartphone in 2016.

Its compact design is much more ergonomic compared to the massive Mate 9.

The price and release date are its only downfall

The Porsche Design Mate 9 is a more compact and more highly developed version of the Mate 9. In addition to its premium and slim design, a brighter screen with better definition, it also offers better technical specifications with more RAM and a larger internal memory while maintaining all the advantages of the Mate 9: the double Leica camera, the Kirin 960 processor and Android 7.1 Nougat.

The only things that let down the Porsche Design Mate 9 are its price and release date. Unlike the Mate 9, which is due to be released on November 15, not only will we have to wait until next December to buy the Porsche Design Mate 9 it will be on sale for a rather bitter 1,395 euros – 200 euros more than the 256 GB iPhone 7 Plus. Finally, as far as distribution is concerned, we’ll have to hunt them out as the smartphone will only be available from Porsche Design stores.